Looking at Symbols in Aboriginal Art  Year 8

Pupils had recently begun a project on Aboriginal Art adapted from Unit 8C Shared View of the QCA scheme of work. They would need to become familiar with some of the codes and conventions used by Aboriginal artists and understand how different beliefs, ideas and values are represented through the use of symbols. This lesson starter aimed to reinforce students’ understanding of the meaning of the most common Aboriginal symbols. They would later develop their own lexicon of pictograms to incorporate into a piece of 3D work in the form of a ”travel pole” decorated with symbolic representations of a journey they had made. The poles would later be installed as a group against a painted backdrop of Ayers Rock with the sound of didgeridoo music. For this lesson the teacher had prepared 3 starter activities for the interactive whiteboard. 

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The first activity aimed to demonstrate the ambiguity of meanings attached to the iconography, reflecting Aboriginal artists’ desire to hide ceremonial symbolism from the uninitiated. Showing the class a single symbol, the teacher asked pupils to predict its meaning orally. He then showed some possible meanings of the symbol one by one, asking pupils to identify which was correct. When the group had voted on their preferred meaning, he revealed that, in fact, all the meanings were possible and explained the reason for the ambiguity, also making comparison with English words that have multiple meanings, yet which are easily understood in context e.g. ruler, row, fly, calf.

The teacher went on to show a set of 11 of the most common symbols with jumbled labels giving their sets of meanings. Individual pupils dragged a label onto the symbol they thought it described, while the class agreed or disagreed with the choice. When all 11 pairs had been matched, the teacher indicated which were correct or not.

Finally, the teacher showed the class a traditional Dreamtime painting, depicting a journey and five Dreamings or creation myths. Using the spotlight tool he focused on details of particular symbols, asking the class to build up a mental image of the whole painting and to predict what the story could be about. Finally, the whole painting was revealed for pupils to identify in context the symbolic details they had looked at in isolation. These were annotated with circles and arrows and the work was saved and printed for each pupil to have a copy on which they could add the meanings for homework to reinforce the lesson objectives. The teacher gave them information about the artist, title, date and symbolic meanings of the painting: Michael Nelson Jagmarra, Five Dreamings, 1984.

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• It allowed the teacher to switch between 3 different activities that would have been difficult to create with traditional methods.
• The images could be projected in colour and on a scale large enough for the whole class to see.
• The spotlight tool enabled the teacher to focus the pupils' attention on key details before revealing the whole picture.
• It also facilitated the use of prediction to enhance verbal reasoning skills.
• Screenshots of the activities can be printed out for homework.
• The prepared activities can easily be adapted and used in future.

http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/culture/symbols.html
Aboriginal Art Online is a colourful site organised under the categories of Art and Artists (including biographies), Land and Cultures, Regions and Communities and online galleries. It is comprehensive, attractive, easy to navigate and fully illustrated.

http://www.aboriginalartpaintings.com/symbols.asp
Although Australian Dreamtime Creations are a commercial company selling traditional Aboriginal artefacts and paintings, their site is a fund of useful illustrated information about symbols, painting techniques, Dreamtime stories and Aboriginal culture. The link is to a page of common symbols. 

http://www.mainzdidgeridoos.com.au/art/artsymbols.html
A useful page of painted symbols with their meanings.

http://www.cooinda-gallery.com.au/aboriginal_art.htm
This page also explains some common symbols.

http://www.virtualartroom.com/interactive_exercises.htm#Aboriginal
Three Hot Potatoes interactive exercises on Aboriginal symbols from me.

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